Woke up at 6:00 am this morning and headed to the buses.
We arrived at the Wingate Institute to start training. We walked into a room that reminded a few of us of the training gym from the first Matrix where Morpheus kicks Neo’s ass into shape (I’ll add a pic soon).
We had a great training session where we worked through basic kicking drills, situational drills and cooled down with some yoga. I felt amazing. The cobwebs were swept away and my body was back to its normal fast, strong movements.
I was partners with Nir (Steven Lopez’s training partner) which was great. He’s so knowledgeable and skilled, that I’m just glad that I have the opportunity to learn with him.
Ate a massive lunch. I think I may have to start eating less carbs (for weigh-ins), but at the rate that I’m burning calories it’s hard to want to eat any less.
OH, and I’m actually getting tan already. My Minnesota T-shirt tan is gone. Which is sweet.
After lunch we got on the buses and headed to a tank museum, where we saw an Israeli propaganda video that kinda pissed me off. The museum itself was incredible, it had more than 116 tanks from various periods of Israel’s history/wars. The video however used corny music, overly excited American voiceovers and jokes comparing the tanks to live elephants. Everyone in the audience was laughing. The short film was an attempt to make the tanks seem less frightening to American tourists. That’s annoying. We all know that the tanks are weapons that are vital to the survival of the Israeli people, so when you have war heroes telling their story of what they fought for and who they lost…don’t splice in a video of an elephant going to the museum’s website.
My favorite part of the museum was this awesome tank. It was one of the tanks used in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Israel had received the tanks from France and thought nothing of them, until someone suggested that they look under the paint job. They found a serial code with a swastika next to it. The Germans had taken the French tanks and used them in World War 2, while Israel reused the same tanks to fight their independence. That’s frickin’ awesome. Take that Germany.
Then we headed to a place with a bunch of awesome caves. Learned more history. Went down into the caves. Made incredibly offensive jokes pretending to be either Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Made cave orifice jokes. Made “Lord of the Rings” Golem jokes. Laughed uproariously and obnoxiously.
Then we headed back to the buses and went to an awesome BBQ with all of the Maccabiah USA team. The food was soooo good. Best food I’ve eaten since coming here. When they said there was going to be a “party” after the BBQ, I expected a DJ. Instead we got a country band, which was very talented, but didn’t really fit this crowd. We still enjoyed it.
Now it’s time to sleep because they moved the bus loading time from 6:30 am to 6:20 am.
Night!
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